the engineering research that gave us conformal antennas

in: National Security


Research funded by the National Bureau of Standards, now called the National Institute of Standards and Technology, supported the creation of conformal antennas, which are used on United States Military weapons and aircraft and on American spacecraft.

Antennas—such as the ones protruding off the top of your car, on top of buildings, or that dot cities and the countryside—are important for sending and receiving information. The antennas we see all over in our daily lives look a lot different than those found on airplanes, missiles, and spacecraft. Those send-and-receive devices are called conformal antennas because they conform to the shape of an object, similar to how a vinyl sticker can be wrapped around a water bottle.

Conformal antennas were invented by Howard Jones Jr. at the National Bureau of Standards (now called the National Institute of Standards and Technology) after he returned from serving in the United States Army Signal Corps during World War II. An engineer by training, Jones decided to focus on improving antennas because of their importance to communications and because, as poky things hanging off a missile or airplane, they caused drag during flight.

The conformal antennas that Jones invented were arrays—a bunch of antennas nested together and working together—and they reduced drag during flight while also improving electrical performance.

Jones’ conformal antennas are used in American military weapons, including the Patriot missile, aircraft, and American spacecraft. Voyager 1 and 2, spacecraft which launched nearly 50 years ago, both have conformal antennas of Jones’ design and are still sending information back to Earth even though they are mind-bogglingly far away. Voyager 2 was the first spacecraft to fly past all four planets in the outer solar system, a feat it accomplished by the end of the 1980s. In late 2024, Voyager 1 was 15.4 billion miles away Earth, the furthest away a human-made object has been. Both spacecraft are still traveling at the outer edges of our solar system.

The lightweight arrays that Jones used to make conformal antennas have also contributed to technology involved in stealth aircraft used by the military.

Jones retired in 1980. His research resulted in over 30 patents, and many of his ideas and designs are still in use.



← Back to home page